


this is your holy

by littleghost



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Machiavel Archetype, Unreliable Narrator, messiah archetype, of lance through keith so, the second just barely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-02-03 12:28:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12748326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleghost/pseuds/littleghost
Summary: "He read a book of poems back in high school, and one line always hit him like a sucker punch to the throat.For you, love is like a religion. It’s terrifying.Keith looks at Lance in the pilot’s seat, Lance in the dining room, Lance on the bridge and thinks his love is too big for his body."// Keith falls in love with a boy.





	this is your holy

 

 

> The sun inside of him  
>  _could set the kingdom ablaze;  
>  _ he knows this, he does.
> 
> _And he still asks me to love him,  
>  _ _to face the flame._
> 
> _Find me in the ashes._
> 
> __—Emily Palermo, ”Apollo”_ _

 

Keith falls in love when he first sees him: brown skin, blue eyes, hair that curls against his temples. Alejandro Esperanza is beautiful, otherworldly, ethereal. It’s in the halls of the Garrison, and Keith stumbles over nothing when he first sees this boy, so bright and full of light, the fluorescent lighting not washing out his skin but instead reflecting off of it.

The air shimmers when Lance laughs, and all Keith wants is to hear that sound again and again.

He spends the next two years trying to get Lance’s attention, but at the best of times Keith is antisocial and he is too afraid to seek this boy out. He thinks of trailer homes and small-town church steeples, a Baptist preacher yelling slurs like God will not listen without them, a group of boys with sneers on their faces, a foster parent with a Bible raised and Leviticus open. Lance wears a rosary around his neck and a medallion for Saint Christopher.

Keith has never been to a Catholic Church, but he knows their history.

And where Lance is an untouchable object, Keith’s green light, Shirogane Takashi is the rock underneath his feet. His assigned mentor turned friend turned brother. He’s lasted the longest in Keith’s life aside from his knife, but a sharp blade doesn’t give Keith what Shiro does. There’s a family between them, between two Asian-American orphans of the state who long to touch the stars.

“Our kinds of people have to stick together,” Shiro told Keith, who has never fit in with anyone in the state of Texas, who doesn’t know what a family is, who has never had someone stick up for him.

The first time Shiro sticks up for Keith against Iverson, he considers it a fluke. The second time is just a coincidence. The third time is a pattern, and Shiro laughs when Keith asks him, “Why are you covering for me?”

“Because I want to,” Shiro said simply.

To Keith, those four words were alien. What people want to do was violence against Keith, a slap to the face, a bruise to the ribs, vitriol spit in his face. No one has ever done something for Keith without expecting payment.

To Keith, Shiro was the hero. Shiro was Alexander, Achilles, Caesar, Richard the Lionheart. Shiro did not have the heart of a lion but he was the lion, proud and strong and sure in himself and where he was.

There was no doubt Shiro would touch the stars, and neither were surprised when he leaves for Pluto.

Until, he doesn’t come back.

 

When his rock is destroyed under his feet, Keith is a drowning man with no land in sight. There is no one to tell Iverson how Keith has anger issues, how Keith is a hands-on learner, how Keith received permission from a commanding officer. There was just Keith against the world.

He falls back into routine. He falls back into staring at the curled hair on the nape of Lance’s neck. He falls asleep in class and doesn’t open a book. His academic scores fall and his flight maneuvers are more reckless, risky, self-sacrificial in every way.

“We don’t want a pilot who doesn’t want to come back,” Iverson tells Keith after his scholarship is terminated. “We want pilots who will touch the stars and live to tell about it.”

Keith bites his tongue and doesn’t tell him no one can touch the stars and live, Keith knows the Garrison is made up of metaphors and imperialist bullshit, and there’s already an American flag on the moon, let’s get one to the next galaxy first.

 Instead, Keith spends one last class with Lance, does one last simulation wherein he executes every move perfectly and saves himself and the day, steals a hoverbike, and runs.

           

Keith doesn’t run. His fight or flight instinct has never had a second option. He fights until he cannot stand up, until he is spitting out blood and his bones are bruised and his knees are weak, but he does not run. There’s no point in running if you have nothing to run to.

 

Keith hides in the desert among the mesas and the valleys. He finds a run-down shack with a couch that’s just half a day’s drive to a town with a grocery store. He explores the dips of the earth, finds where the rattlesnakes nest but they don’t rattle and bite. He finds the caves with drawings of lions, feels the energy thrum through his body but he can’t find the source.

He watches the sun set, and it’s always different even if he stares at it from the same place. The stars shine bright during the night and he picks out the constellations and strains his eyes to see Pluto.

Something tells him Shiro is still out there and he is determined to find his brother.

 

He wakes up one morning and there’s something telling him he needs to move. It feels like a magnet is working on his body as it directs him away from the rising sun. He doesn’t speed through the desert like he usually does but he can’t bring himself to change directions.

When the sun is setting Keith watches it, and sees something blaze across the sky. It falls towards Keith and he gazes at it, open-mouthed and wide-eyed.

_He’s back_ , a voice whispers to him, but Keith can’t tell if it is his own head or that force. He hops on his hoverbike and guns it.

There are men in Garrison uniforms and Keith grits his teeth when he sees them. He has never had a plan but he knows how to fight, how to aim for the spots that hurt and he does. One, two, three, four down and he enters the shuttle to find—

 

Keith doesn’t believe in God but he believes there’s something out there, and he lets every holy word he can think of fall from his lips as he sees his brother, alive and breathing.

Alexander died of a mere illness. Achilles died in desperation to fulfill his prophecy. Caesar was betrayed by Brutus. Richard had his heart torn from his dead body and saved in a box.

They were only men, after all.

 

Keith sees Alejandro Esperanza again and forgets all his doubts. Lance, in the pilot’s seat of a giant lion, bright-eyed and red-cheeked and laughing so loud Keith thought the metal flooring would break apart.

It is too much life in one boy, too much love and hope and fear and sadness.

 

He read a book of poems back in high school, and one line always hit him like a sucker punch to the throat. _For you, love is like a religion. It’s terrifying_.

Keith looks at Lance in the pilot’s seat, Lance in the dining room, Lance on the bridge and thinks his love is too big for his body.

 

On the training deck Lance is a thing of beauty. Keith is rough edges and split-second decisions, bloodied fists and sharp elbows. Lance fights like it’s a dance, with every step already planned out, the ending already known. He didn’t grow up like Keith did but a brown boy in a paramilitary academy learns more than one would think.

Keith likes to watch Lance fight. The lines of his body are graceful for once, his long legs are no longer disadvantageous, his strategic mind always at the forefront. Every move is calculated three steps before. Lance knows what Keith will do before he does.

No one wins against Lance in chess.

 

It’s one year in and Lance’s fire is still bright. He still has the end of this dance planned out, he still has nieces and nephews to hug and cherish, a mother to adore, and a father to apologize to. Keith gave himself to the cause because he has no reason not to, but Lance believes in it.

He’s the best at diplomacy, third best behind Shiro and Allura in strategy, behind Keith in Shiro in combat, fluent in Altean and Galra, and studies the histories of allied planets. Pidge calls Lance a jack of all trades and laughing finishes it with _and master of none_. Hunk says his best friend stretches himself too thin. Allura and Shiro are too grateful for a third mind.

Keith sees the way Lance pulls everything into his orbit. Keith sees the way Lance smiles at an alien child and makes their day. Keith sees the way Lance has created his own religion in space.

There’s a medallion of Saint Christopher hanging in Blue.

“Patron saint of travelers,” he explained. “It was my abuelo’s for when he fled Cuba, my mama’s when she ran, and now mine.”

Keith had wanted to ask what Lance was running from, but the alarm sounded and they were running towards the hangars.

 

Sometimes Keith looks at Lance and just marvels at this messiah boy, this wonder of stardust and carbon, this man who has seen too much but still can smile. Keith loves him, Keith is in love with him, Keith’s love for this broken boy encompasses this entire universe and its multitudes twice over. His body feels too small to hold all this love but Lance has been doing it for years.

The words threaten to fall out of Keith’s mouth every time he sees ocean eyes and curly hair, threatens to drown him in metaphors and purple prose, threatens to run his body into the ground.

_I love you, I love you, I love you_ every atom of Keith’s body sings. From the moment he saw those ocean eyes Keith was born again.

 

Many, many, many years ago, Keith sat in the front pew of a church.  He was telling a story but Keith forgets most of it. What he does remember is the man saying, “—and he gave it to his mom and said, ‘This is your holy. Carry it with you wherever you go.’”

This is Keith’s holy: an alien knife; a brother with kind eyes despite the horrors; a found family; a boy with stars in his veins and a hurricane in his heart.

This is Keith’s holy, beating heart, made holy by the love of a holy boy.

 

Keith opens his eyes to find himself held in Lance’s arms. The Castle is cold, but it’s worse when first stepping out of a healing pod.

“Hey, Mullet,” Lance says. He smiles but it doesn’t reach the corners of his eyes.

Keith is torn between berating himself for making Lance sad and rubbing away the furrow between Lance’s brows. He settles for asking, “How long?”

His voice is raspy.

"A few weeks.” Lance’s voice wobbles. “I missed you.”

Keith’s eyes widen and he can feel his cheeks heat. His heart skips a beat, an arrhythmia, before it races. “Oh.” he says.

Lance laughs, and it sounds genuine. Keith ducks his head so Lance doesn’t see his smile. It’s been years since he first heard that laugh, and it’ll be years before he ever stops hearing it.

 

Alejandro: _defender of men_.

Esperanza: _hope_.

Messiah boy.

 

If Lance is the heart of Voltron, Keith is the ugly part of it. There’s humanity in the other four paladins, morals and hopes and dreams. Pidge wants to see her mom and dad reunite. Hunk wants to see his moms. Lance wants to go back to Cuba. Shiro wants to see the Rockies again, and climb Everest.

Keith has nothing besides love for a boy who can’t love him back.

If everyone has morals, then Keith is the one to do their dirty work. He was molded into a weapon his entire life: sharp edges, blunt force. When Hunk closes his eyes, Keith keeps his open. When Pidge covers her ears, Keith strains to listen. When Shiro makes the order with a trembling voice, Keith carries it out.

When Lance aims a shot at an actual living, breathing creature, Keith throws his sword.

If he can keep this war from dimming Lance’s light, he’ll do anything.

 

“I love you,” Keith says to a sleeping boy.

Lance opens his eyes. The stars refract off his irises. Keith thinks of the ocean he has never seen, the ocean that keeps Lance tethered to Earth, to the family that lives on water and land.

“I love you too,” he says.

Keith, a born again believer. Keith, who puts his faith in one boy. Keith, who loves as fiercely as he fights and gets loved just as intensely in return.

 

Lance steps on the sand in Cuba and almost crumples. Keith keeps him up with an arm around his waist and says, “You can do this.”

Says, “They’ve missed you so much.”

Says, “I’ll be right here.”

Says, “I love you.”

 

This is Keith’s holy: a holy boy with ocean eyes and stardust blood. A holy boy who prays the rosary and asks for forgiveness.

He never apologizes for Keith, though.

 

**Author's Note:**

> i'd like to thank richard siken and the line "i am singing now while rome burns. / we are all just trying to be holy." although it did not make the final cut. the siken quote that did was _love, for you, / is larger than you the usual romantic love. it's like a religion. it's / terrifying. no one / will ever want to sleep with you._ i did indeed hear the sermon keith mentions, and for full context is was about how this boy made something for his mom and told her "this is your holy" and preacher man emphasized the use of holy as a noun. it's always stayed with me despite my uhhh dislike of churches.
> 
> for the uninitiated in 2013 tumblr archetypes, [here](http://okayophelia.tumblr.com/post/88319841310/hi-can-you-explain-to-me-the-king-and-lionheart) is an explanation for messiah/machiavel and king/lionheart
> 
> and [here](http://lesbiankatieholt.tumblr.com) is my tumblr


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